Chapter Text
“So...we’re using our mysterious, terrifyingly powerful, dimension tearing abilities on the local wildlife now?” Varric asked.
The Inquisitor stared at him, aghast. “Varric!” he hissed. “You said you wouldn’t tell them!”
That was true enough, but it had taken Varric just less than half an hour into the journey to give in to temptation. The Exalted Plains may be a place steeped in fascinating and violent history (as Solas kept pointing out) but it was also cold, windy and boring as hell to walk across. Varric wasn’t a huge fan of the great outdoors as it was, and a guy had to get his entertainment where he could. And sure enough...
“Wait, you’re not serious?” said Cassandra, stopping in her tracks and turning to stare at the Inquisitor. “You were able to use that new ability from your mark again?”
“Yep,” said Varric, cheerfully answering for him. “On some spiders.”
“On...” Cassandra looked slightly faint. “You used the ancient magic we barely understand and tore open the veil between worlds to kill spiders?”
Markus Trevelyan was a tall, broad-shouldered man of some thirty six years, but right now he looked like nothing so much as a misbehaving schoolboy who had just been ratted out to his teacher. Behind his neat sandy beard was a look of defiant guilt.
“I don’t like spiders,” he muttered.
“To be fair, they were giant spiders,” said Varric, enjoying himself immensely. Cassandra rounded on him.
“You are not helping Varric. Why didn’t you stop him?”
Varric was both slightly amused and momentarily speechless at this flagrant injustice, but was saved from coming up with a response as Solas cut in.
“What happened?” asked the elf, unusually excited. “It worked as it did before?”
“Pretty much,” said Trevelyan. “Glowing green stuff, spiders flying about, that sort of thing.”
“And there weren’t any adverse effects?”
“On me?” Trevelyan looked rather worried, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. For a mage, the man was remarkably unconcerned about the side effects of powerful magic. “Ah...not that I noticed?”
“What about on the world?” burst in Cassandra, apparently sufficiently distracted back to her original target. “Think of what you might have unleashed! You used the unstable power of the demon realm as...as pest control.”
“They were very big spiders,” said Trevelyan, a touch plaintively. “And there were a lot of them.”
“I do not think we need be concerned Seeker,” said Solas. “If my theory is correct, this new power is almost the reverse of the rifts. If anything went wrong, it is unlikely that any more demons would be brought through into our world. Indeed, I would think it far more probable that anything nearby would instead be sucked into the Fade.”
Cassandra stared at him. “That is...not at all reassuring Solas,” she managed.
Trevelyan nodded vigorous agreement. “You think I could be sucked into the Fade by using this thing?” he said.
“Only if you lost control of it,” said Solas, smiling faintly, “and thus far you have shown remarkable control over the abilities of your mark. Or, the Anchor, as I suppose we should now properly call it. We are fortunate that you are a mage, since I doubt one without innate magical talent could have mastered it as you have, and I believe you have shown it may be wielded safely. As with all magic, it is there to be used, not rejected out of fear.”
As one of the two non-mages present, Varric felt there was rather an implied insult to this, and a glance at Cassandra’s frown told him he wasn’t the only one.
“I am glad the mark has proven useful,” she said wearily. “But I still will not trust its power when we know it came from Corypheus.”
“You’re right,” said Trevelyan, looking suitably chastened. “I should have been more cautious.” He turned back to Solas. “You can help me study this, can’t you?” he asked, and his familiar broad smile was back in a flash. “In a more controlled way than me just randomly using it when I panic, I mean?”
Solas smiled back. “Of course.”
Trevelyan nodded and held his hands up beseechingly at Cassandra. “Forgive me. I wasn’t really thinking. And for the record, Varric may be a terrible snitch and shameless stabber-of-backs, but he couldn’t have stopped me if he’d tried. It just sort of happened. But trust me, I won’t be using this again for a while. Even on spiders.”
“I do trust you,” said Cassandra, smiling despite herself. “But I also want you to be careful. And please Inquisitor, if you come across spiders again, just call for help.”
Trevelyan grinned. “Does that only go for the giant ones? Because there’s one in the corner of my room at Skyhold that’s been giving me the eye. I’ve been sleeping in the kitchens for days.”
Cassandra laughed, and Varric took that as a sign that they were probably both off the hook for now. The Inquisitor did have a knack for calming the Seeker down, just as Varric had a particular gift for winding her up. It was something he was grateful for, especially after the whole Hawke debacle a couple of months ago – that was the angriest he had ever seen Cassandra, which was saying a lot, and it had taken Trevelyan a lot of smoothing over to make things amicable again.
They decided to pause for lunch and Varric munched his bread, watching their leader chatting away with Cassandra as they ate, all disagreements forgotten. It really hadn’t taken the two long to become quite friendly, even after what had happened at the Conclave. He himself had taken a lot longer to forgive the Seeker for their less than pleasant introduction, and maybe that was as much his fault as hers, at that. It had genuinely surprised him how personally betrayed she had clearly felt when she had found out about Hawke. And it had surprised him how guilty he had felt about it. Even knowing he had done the right thing by his friend, Varric didn’t take any pleasure in upsetting Cassandra. She already bore responsibility for too many things that weren’t actually her fault without adding more to the pile.
Though her trying to punch his lights out when she discovered the truth had tempered his sympathy somewhat.
Still, now Cassandra knew exactly where Hawke was, Varric was no longer a prisoner, and they were starting to hash out a strange kind of friendship. Of a sort. Which apparently didn’t stop her from immediately trying to blame him whenever anything went wrong. Varric grinned to himself. He supposed it was almost a compliment, really.
“Hey Varric!” The Inquisitor’s voice brought him out of his musings. “When are we going to get the next instalment of Swords and Shields, anyway? Some of us are eager to know what happens next.”
Varric chuckled, partly at the aghast look on Cassandra’s face at Trevelyan’s complete lack of shame, partly at the fact that she had apparently now gotten the Inquisitor into the serial too.
“Give me some time,” he called back cheerfully. “I do also have things to write that actually sell, you know.”
“But you are writing more?” said Cassandra, her voice decidedly hopeful.
“Couldn’t disappoint my biggest fan, Seeker.”
She made a faintly disgusted noise at that, but she was smiling, and her heart clearly wasn’t in it.
In retrospect, being bored was probably better than being ambushed.
The Venatori had a nasty habit of popping up everywhere they went these days, and it seemed the Exalted Plains were no exception. It wasn’t really surprising, Varric supposed, since the cult was apparently still obsessed with capturing or killing the Inquisitor and were probably simply following him wherever they could, waiting for a chance. And Markus Trevelyan wasn’t particularly adept in the fine art of keeping a low profile.
He was currently dodging through the middle of quite a large group of Venatori with a huge grin on his face, bellowing colourful insults as their spells bounced off the shimmering magical barrier surrounding him, and occasionally pausing to throw a blast of fire at one or other of the robed figures.
Deliberate or not, it made for quite an effective distraction, Varric had to admit. Their little group was outnumbered here, but the Venatori were so intent on trying to get to the Inquisitor that he had managed to take down a couple already with a quick crossbow bolt to the leg before they’d even noticed him. Solas had taken refuge behind a nearby boulder and was concentrating on keeping a protective barrier up around Trevelyan and deflecting the odd barrage of magic that was occasionally hurled his way. Cassandra – never exactly one for subtlety either – was in the thick of things, mainly using her shield as a blunt instrument to slam into the Venatori in the hopes of knocking them senseless. Perhaps she intended to leave some alive for questioning, or perhaps she just didn’t want to swing her sword too much with Trevelyan leaping about the place like a madman.
Varric couldn’t help but sympathise – the tip of his crossbow weaved through the air in front of him as he tried to find a safe target to focus on. Which was why he didn’t notice the danger until it was too late. It was Solas’ cry of warning that made him turn, although he hadn’t even realised it had been directed at him. One of the Venatori mages he had shot a minute ago was kneeling on the ground just a few yards away, not half as dead as he should be despite the crossbow bolt in his chest, his staff directly aimed at Varric’s heart. Shit. The mage cried out something unintelligible and sent a blast of flame directly at him and Varric barely had time to throw his hands in front of his face in a completely futile gesture of defence. So it was a bit of a surprise when something hit him from the side instead, knocking him to the ground and sending Bianca spinning out of his hands. He scrambled up and looked wildly around to see...
Cassandra, lying on the ground at the end of a furrow of scorched earth, her shield lying by her side, tiny flames still flickering in the charred grass around her.
Varric heard the Inquisitor cry out her name in horror. His own voice was caught in his throat as he stared at her, crumpled on the ground. She wasn’t getting back up. Why wasn’t she getting back up? He started towards her instinctively, but was thrown back as another blast just barely missed him. Fuck this, he didn’t have time for it right now. He snatched up Bianca from where she had fallen and fired three shots in quick succession at the mage, not waiting to see whether they hit before he started to move, strafing right to try and reach Cassandra without turning his back on the Venatori.
The tempo of battle had increased, with Solas now out from behind his boulder, his staff spitting ice; the Venatori pressing the advantage by clustering back together into a united front, chanting rhythmically as they hurled magic from their staves in all directions; the Inquisitor throwing his marked hand into the air as vibrant green energy crackled around it. Varric desperately tried to keep in sight the splayed heap of Cassandra, lying still and silent on the ground. She was alright. She had to be alright, because the alternative was unthinkable. Maker please.
He was forced to leap backwards to avoid a blast of ice from Solas, and then the world went a familiar sickly green colour. The remaining Venatori mages were drawn helplessly into the air, letting out cries of terror as the shimmering power of the fade engulfed them. Easy pickings. Varric joined Solas and Trevelyan as they took them out with brisk efficiency. There was sound like a sharp inhaling of breath, a soft pop and the green light vanished, dropping the last Venatori bodies to the ground with heavy thumps.
The Inquisitor, with his longer strides, got to the Seeker’s side before Varric did. Trevelyan pressed two fingers gently to her neck, and as he approached Varric heard a sigh of relief and the familiar clink of a healing potion.
Cassandra groaned and Varric breathed again for what felt like the first time in the last ten minutes. Her eyes opened slowly, as if even that small movement was painful, and she sat up carefully but made no attempt to stand. Solas wandered off to examine the Venatori corpses, apparently satisfied that the crisis was past, but Varric found he couldn’t seem to move, his eyes fixed on the Seeker.
“Are you alright?” the Inquisitor was asking her anxiously.
“As well as can be expected,” replied Cassandra, with some difficulty. “This shield was made to withstand fire, and it seems it was successful. Remind me to pass on my compliments to Master Harritt.” She winced. “I did hit my head when I fell however, by the feel of it.”
“Thank the Maker it wasn’t worse,” said Trevelyan. “Oh, I er...I did the thing with the mark again. Sorry.”
Cassandra smiled wryly. “I suspect in this case it was justified.” A thought seemed to occur to her suddenly. “How is...everyone else?”
Trevelyan grinned. “Everyone else is just fine,” he said pointedly, “thanks to you.”
Caught in an unexpected tidal wave of relief, Varric watched the fond smile on the Inquisitor’s face as he pulled Cassandra gently to her feet, remembered the man’s cry as she had fallen, saw the faint flush on the Seeker’s cheeks...
And something soft broke inside him, quietly, unexpectedly.
Oh.
Shit.